The final straw was today. Ever since M&T bought Provident, whom I banked with for almost a decade, I have had expensively bad and unethical service. M&T took over and NEVER annouced their fee structure and raised it w/o informing me, their customer. They did away with Provident's lockbox checking practices that held money that had pending transactions against it, decreasing the liklihood of overdrafts.

Now, M&T takes transactions and manipulates the processing time so that they can charge NSF fees. It doesn't matter if you catch your mistake and deposit CASH to cover it, they still charge it and justify it by saying that they credit cash AFTER you did the original transaction.

They have poor real estate for their ATMs causing me to use other ATMs and incur fees as a result.

I have been laid off and am in the Air National Guard. After the government rectified a pay mistake that they caused, I went almost a month w/o pay and incurred some overdrafts. I KNEW that I would have to pay the fees, as distateful as that is. I realize there are consequences for my actions. However, when I had a deposit go in and I made everything good, I found that M&T had a 24 hour hold on my account. When I called Sustomer support they told me that it was their policy and that it could not be waived. I pointed out that I had a positive balance and that the bank made some decent fees off of me and that they were holding my money hostage.

To add insult to injury, the CSR hung up on me.

I have had conversations with Asst Branch managers who have confided in me their disatisfaction with their new employer. In all, I estimate that I have paid upwards of $800 in fees since the takeover. That does not take into account the fact that many of my transactions that were heretofore honored by Provident were manipulated into NSF status by their unethical practices. I am finally closing my account and am putting the word out aboutr these userious bandits, in my opinion.